I recently found this gorgeous TV at the tail end of an estate sale. I had no idea what i was getting myself into, but he CRT lit up when I plugged it in, so I bought it. I'm totally in love with the case and the gorgeous sound that comes out of the speaker buried in there.

I hooked it up to a VCR with an old school two-prong adapter and was pleased to see rolling picture. The contrast looks good and the image looks to be pretty sharp, but I cannot stop the rolling. I can't see any horizontal adjustment knob anywhere, at least not accessible from the exterior of the case. Anybody familiar with these "telesets". I'm grateful for any help you an suggest.

Does that center panel flip down? Often the lesser used controls are behind those.

Rolling of a otherwise coherent picture would indicate a Vertical Hold issue, a bunch of slanted lines would be Horizontal.

Regardless of whether it works or not now it's been around since the mid 1950's and really needs to be electronically restored before it can be used reliably, unless it already has been by the previous owner.

I had no idea! That's like some James Bond action there. The whole Dumont badge flips down like the license plate over a gas cap on a 1960's car. love it! Now that we';re all digital in Minneapolis, I have to hook a box up to it to see what we get, but I'm stoked.

as well as that works I am guessing its been restored already, nice find. Still would not hurt to have someone that knows what they are doing check it out to at least see if the old paper caps have been done, but I would guess it must have been. In the mean time just don't leave it on un attended, this is pretty much true about ANY vintage electronics.

How do i go about testing the tubes? Anybody familiar with the vintage TV scene in Minnesota?

Join the Northland Antique Radio Club, they have many people interested in old TVs that can probably assist you. They have a big meet coming up in just 3 weeks. Should be plenty of tube testers for sale there.

A TV which works that well isn't likely to have any serious problems with bad tubes. If you want to test 'em anyway, bring them to the swap meet and ask someone with a tester if you can use it for a few minutes.

Buying a tube tester seems pretty low priority unless you plan to get seriously involved with restoring tube radios & TVs. If you want to spend money on this TV, pay someone to check it out and replace the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply, so you can play it without worrying that it may go up in smoke any moment. Unlike tubes, capacitors can and do deteriorate simply from sitting around.

There is a sharp bend in the top of the TV picture. It seemed to be related to the Vertical Linearity control, but like the amount of correction needed was beyond the top of the dial. It got lots worse if I turned it left, and just started getting better at the far right.

philsoldradios wrote:

replace the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply, so you can play it without worrying that it may go up in smoke

Thanks for the safety tip, Phil. It did make a loud cracking noise a couple times while it was warming up, followed by a whiff of ozone. That startled me a bit, but not enough to keep me from going back in the house to take a phone call. Eventually I thought "Ya know, how certain am I that thing's not ON FIRE right now?"

Are the capacitors something I can remove, or are they connected to the board? I got the TV for a song, so I'm willing to put up to $100 into it. I've spent more than that on stupid new things that never dd work very well and i regretted ever buying.

Vertical Linearity has more to do with the proper scanning, you need a good round test pattern to really get it right. the hook in the top could be a sync issue, maybe agc, maybe a defect in the vert generating a powerful spike. adjusting the linearity control just stretches the top of the screen out, or compressing the effect. the caps are not a plug in part like tubes, you need to have some soldering skill. Better left to someone that has some tech repair experience.

Vertical rolling can also be caused by problems in the vertical circuits. Horizontal tearing can also be caused by problems in the horizontal circuits. It is common for old TVs to have problems in both vertical and horizontal sections.

Buzzing on high-contrast scenes is also common in old TVs. Recapping and aligning the audio section may reduce it, some times not so much.

If you count the number of paper and electrolytic capacitors in this TV, that approximates the number of potential problems that it has. All of them (probably three or four dozen parts) are suspect, if not already funky. A professional restorer would replace all of them.

I would agree with the earlier recommendations from Eric and Dave. Have a qualified person restore this TV, or at least check it out.

You can't restore a TV electronically by simply plugging in a couple of new parts, just as you can't rebuild a worn-out 50-year old engine by putting in new sparkplugs. This is not a good project for someone with no electronics experience. High voltage that can injure you, lots of complexity.